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Chicken with eggplant and chickpeas

Today is my 33 rd birthday.

I have never been one to hide my age, fear it, or worry about it.To me age is just a number. A number to stop by and look back, at childhood and teenage years left behind.Check the dream list and see what has been checked off ,what has been forgotten and what is still waiting. To look back at an image in young eyes of what my life would be like at this age and then look around and see how does reality compare to the expectations.

I look around and to most of the people I know getting older means becoming boring stiff people.They lose the spark in their eyes,they lose their dreams,they let go of hope and adventure and live in “reality”.Growing up also seems to includes abandoning all childish joys because they are “silly and unbecoming of someone at your age”.How on earth did pure and innocent and simple become silly?
What is wrong with watching cartoon or playing on the swings every now and then and when did going for a walk in the rain and laughing when the rain drops tickle your face become outlawed for adults!

I don’t like this version of “growing up”. Growing up should mean more maturation , a deeper understanding of life, people and most importantly a deeper understanding of one’s self. More tolerance and patience for the bumps in the road and the hardships in life. Knowing that you can get up after a fall and that a u turn is the end of the road only when u fail to make a change in direction.

I seem to have managed to make it through one more year of my life with out “growing up” as most people seem to define it 🙂 and I thought I’d share these thoughts with you along with a question: what does your birthday mean to you? do you fear it? look forward to it? By the end of the day when you put your head on your pillow, what do you think about?

I am in love with eggplants! I love it in salads, sandwiches, pizza and rice dishes but today I wanted to try something new.This chicken with eggplant and chickpeas recipe is a blend between a Moroccan dish I saw at Epicurious and a turkish recipe on delicious bite. I loved the Moroccan blend of spices and I was sure it will add a blast of flavor to the chicken , the addition of chickpeas and mint to the turkish version seemed to make a lot of since and I thought why not combine them both. The end result was amazing! the chickpeas added texture and richness to the taste, while the spices and mint really brought the dish to life.

Before I get to the recipe I would like to remind you that you can still enter the giveawayto win one of two albertson gift cards here. And I would like to thank Anna Deskins who is a talented children book author and mommy blogger for interviewing me on her website. Anna has a passion for getting parents to read for their kids. Thank you Anna for the interview 🙂

Happy Birthday!! I try to think about all the positive things about the day when I go to bed. Your body heals itself while you sleep so I make sure only happy postive thoughts get in there. I also think a lot about food! I wake up thinking about what I’m going to cook and how to style it…:D I love aubergine too, especially with chickpeas I’m going to try it with pomegranate too, because I have 2 staring at me from the fruit bowl, thanks!!

Happy birthday!!! What a wonderful outlook to have! You’re only as old as you feel 🙂 I’m almost 27 and I still watch cartoons, and playing with my nephews makes me feel younger, though my body certainly disagrees with me sometimes! I hope you have a wonderful day!
And great looking recipe! I, too, love eggplant and combining the Moroccan and Turkish aspects sounds delicious!

Belated birthday greetings. Hope you celebrated in style! Love your thoughts about getting older and “growing up”. What a timely recipe, one of Big Man´s friends came round yesterday with a gift of 5kgs of his home grown chick peas….lucky us! And we have our chickens in the freezer and eggplants in the garden so there´s every good reason for me to give this a go very soon as it looks and sounds wonderful. ¡Cumpleaños Feliz!

We tried it and I LOVED it. My husband finally told me his true feelings about eggplant… “I think I don’t like eggplant. Otherwise it was great honey.” How many times in 30 years have I served the man eggplant? A lot. Hmmm, I guess thirty years finally gives a man the courage to tell you what he doesn’t like to eat? LOL! Guess it will be served without the eggplant next time. 😉 Keep up the good work because you are making cooking fun for me!

hehehe you made me laugh with the 30 years to build up courage!
Really glad you loved it..thank you SO MUCH for the feedback..I deeply appreciate it..
it feels great to know that someone is trying and enjoying my recipes

Happy belated birthday! I for one, and I have no idea why, loathe my birthday. It has been and gone without a mention on my blog post for this exact reason. But I don’t even know why, no issue with ageing. Maybe the overhype of it all?

This is a lovely post though, and a lovely recipe, I always look forward to your reflective posts, keep them coming!

Happy Birthday Sawsan! I do hope you had/have a wonderful day (not sure with the time zones!). I have never been too intimidated by my birthday, but now that I am fast approaching yet another benchmark birthday (starts with “5”) I must say, I am getting a little freaked out. I loved turning 30 and then 40, but this next one bites (not that the alternative is any better), I’d just rather stay in my 40’s from now on!!!
I also love eggplant and chickpeas. This is a recipe I can see I would love right away. I love the flavours going on with all the spices.

Happy belated birthday!!!! I love the flavors that go into this wonderful dish!!! I have never done anything with chickpeas and eggplants together. This sounds amazing, specially all the spices that you added..I also like the idea of chopped cilantro!!!!

Happy Belated Birthday, Sawsan! I am so far behind on my reading and feel terrible that I missed your special day! I wish you another year of self learning and maturing. You are a wonderful lady and you have a super great outlook on life, very admiral, you deserve a glorious up coming year and life 🙂

Hello Mie 🙂
You add the chickpeas with the water and tomatoes, sorry that was missing from the instructions. I updated the post.
Really glad you enjoy my recipes and I hope this one will be to your liking too

A very happy belated birthday Sawsan – I hope you had a wonderful day, and I’m fully in agreement. I take joy in the silliest of things sometime… well, silly in the eyes of my peers, but seriously, when did it stop being fun to shake a tree covered in rain-drops on someone’s head while walking in the forest? 😀